Then he sighed, and stared again through the window.
Then once more the door opened, and a tall girl came in.
"Well, my dear ?" she observed.
Oliver shook his head, with compressed lips.
"Nothing definite," he said.

"Even less than usual.

Listen." He took up the green sheet and began to read aloud as the girl sat down in a window-seat on his left.
She was a very charming-looking creature, tall and slender, with serious, ardent grey eyes, firm red lips, and a beautiful carriage of head and shoulders.

She had walked slowly across the room as Oliver took up the paper, and now sat back in her brown dress in a very graceful and stately attitude.

She seemed to listen with a deliberate kind of patience; but her eyes flickered with interest.
"'Irkutsk--April fourteen--Yesterday--as--usual--But--rumoured-- defection--from--Sufi--party--Troops--continue--gathering-- Felsenburgh--addressed--Buddhist--crowd--Attempt--on--Llama--last-- Friday--work--of--Anarchists--Felsenburgh--leaving--for--Moscow--as -- arranged--he....' There--that is absolutely all," ended Oliver dispiritedly.